On a summer morning in Pittsburgh's Larimer neighborhood, tragedy struck when Terrell Wright, a 41-year-old Black male from Murrysville, was shot and killed. The incident, which also claimed the life of 18-year-old Jaymerie M. Washington of Pittsburgh, unfolded around 10:20 a.m. on Tuesday, July 18, 2017, outside an apartment building on Auburn Street.
The city's ShotSpotter gunfire detection system registered at least five shots in the area.
The motive for the daylight shooting was not immediately clear to investigators. Police were looking into a possible connection to a drug operation that had resulted in multiple arrests at the same apartment complex the night before the shooting. However, authorities did not immediately confirm if the two events were related. A black Cadillac Escalade was towed from the crime scene as part of the investigation.
Family and friends of Terrell Wright gathered at the scene, overwhelmed with grief. His mother, Stephanie Pollard, arrived in anguish, having now lost a second son to gun violence. In 2011, Terrell's brother, Jorman Wright Jr., was also shot and killed. Compounding the family's pain, another of Terrell's brothers, Joshua Wright, had been arrested near the same location just hours before Terrell's death. An uncle described Terrell as a 'good guy' who had been laid off but was preparing to start a new job.
As of early 2018, no suspects had been publicly identified in the shooting deaths of Terrell Wright and Jaymerie Washington, and no arrests had been made. The investigation into the double homicide in Larimer was ongoing.
